Allscripts offering buyouts

With help from Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202) and Darius Tahir (@dariustahir)

ALLSCRIPTS OFFERING BUYOUTS: Chicago-based EHR company Allscripts has been offering buyouts to some employees, the company has confirmed — and a former employee tells Morning eHealth that those offers are widespread, Darius Tahir reports.

The buyouts could reflect a bumpy adjustment period as the company snaps up new firms and divisions. It acquired Practice Fusion, plus portions of McKesson and NantHealth, over the past year. Its most recent quarterly filings showed strong revenue growth, though those gains were nearly matched on a percentage basis by rising interest costs.

“As Allscripts continually looks to balance resources across the Company to ensure we are best supporting clients, and as the Company continues to realize expected synergies resulting from our recent acquisitions, Allscripts offered a Voluntary Early Retirement Program (VERP) to a limited number of eligible U.S.-based associates,” a company spokeswoman said. Some of the “eligible associates have opted to take advantage of the offer.”

Pros can read the rest of the story here.

TRUMP REORG WOULD OVERHAUL FDA, NIH: The White House on Thursday released its massive government reorganization plan, which includes proposals to rename and reshape HHS and also to change divisions such as the FDA and NIH.

Under the new plan, HHS would become the Department of Health and Public Welfare, in charge of several public assistance programs now overseen by the Department of Agriculture, including the $70 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The rebranding would “more accurately reflect the mission of the agency and raise the profile of non-health related programs,” according to OMB’s reorganization plan.

FDA would lose its food safety responsibilities and get a new name: the Federal Drug Administration. Food safety would be consolidated under a new agency at USDA. The Trump administration said this would free up FDA resources to focus on its “core responsibilities” of drugs, devices, biologics and tobacco.

The administration also wants to move three research arms of HHS — the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research — under NIH’s umbrella. Read more from Pro’s Rachana Pradhan here.

eHealth Tweet of the day: Sandro Galea @sandrogalea Using social media to disseminate research extends the reach of the science. Enjoyed discussing this with@ProfMattFox, whose own Twitter use is an engaging case in point.@BUSPH@BU_Tweets@BUexperts@societyforepi@PublicHealth#SER2018

[Responding to @sandrogalea] Beth Linas, PhD @bethlinas YES. It also helps improve#science &#health literacy as researchers/providers are challenged to explain their work in short non-jargon filled language!#scicomm#socialmediaforscience!

It’s finally FRIDAY at Morning eHealth where your author mourns the loss of Koko and urges you to revisit this clip of her momentous audience with Mr. Rogers. Send your most beloved instances of interspecies communication, and news tips, to [email protected]. Reach the rest of the team at @arthurallen202, @dariustahir,@ravindranize, @POLITICOPro,@Morning_eHealth.

CMS DEBUTS DATA ELEMENT LIBRARY: CMS now has a publicly searchable database displaying the patient data elements it requires from post-acute care facilities. The new data element library is intended to help facilities understand what types of data CMS gathers from patient health assessments to inform its quality measures and to calculate payments.

There’s also a cache of health information technology standards that EHR vendors can search and incorporate into their products for post-acute care facilities, potentially easing the transfer of data between facilities. It’s all part of the broad White House and HHS collaboration known as “MyHealtheData,” which aims to make patient data more easily transferable, according to a statement from CMS administrator Seema Verma.

FEDERAL MONEY STILL NEEDED FOR ISLANDS’ HEALTH IT GOALS: The government needs to contribute money to help Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam prepare for future natural disasters, panelists at a Hill briefing convened by the National Health IT Collaborative on Thursday. Luis Belen, the leader of the collaborative, said that local governments and the private sector are ready — but that the level of resources to build up their health IT infrastructure can only be brought by the federal government. As we wrote earlier this year, Puerto Rico in particular had struggled with EHR adoption before the hurricanes hit in late 2017. But the panelists emphasized that better software — backed by health information exchanges and cloud services — should be the goal, not merely restoring old service.

FDA APPROVES CONTINUOUS GLUCOSE MONITORING SYSTEM: Senseonics’ Eversense Continuous Glucose Monitoring system is the first product with a fully implantable glucose sensor to receive FDA approval, the agency announced Thursday. The sensor, implanted just under the skin, can be worn for up to 90 days and can feed glucose level data into a mobile app every five minutes. The approval is part of a “new and more carefully tailored regulatory approach” at FDA that includes pre-approving tech companies to develop health products, commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a news release.

MORE APPLAUSE FOR MULLIN’S PRIVACY BILL: The Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness joined the chorus of patient groups supporting the House’s passage Wednesday of H.R. 6082, which would make it easier for providers to access patients’ substance abuse data. Critics, including Rep. Frank Pallone, have argued that exposing patients’ substance abuse data to providers and payers could dissuade them from seeking treatment, but proponents say that keeping the information separate hinders providers’ ability to treat patients. “Clinicians need access to a patient’s full medical history, including substance use disorder records, to assess risks and adequately care for a patient,” Pamela Greenberg, head of ABHW, said in a release.

FUTURISTIC EHRS GET A SHOUTOUT AT ASPEN: Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson says we should be thinking more broadly about medical records of the future. At the opening event of the Aspen Ideas Festival, Tyson sketched out a vision in which medical records will be infused with “my social network ... my eating possibilities and challenges ... my stress,” he said. “I will have much more wrapped around me — and it will be cool!”

ON DECK FOR NEXT WEEK: On Monday, the NCCN Oncology Policy Summit at the Press Club, the American College of Rheumatology and the National Psoriasis Foundation host a congressional briefing... On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committeehosts a hearing on prescription drug affordability.... On Wednesday, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hosts a hearing on VA secretary nominee Robert Wilkie.

WHAT WE’RE CLICKING ON:

—The Atlantic’s storyon epigenetics research

—GAO’s reporton the Veterans Health Administration’s staffing challenges

—MobiHealthNews on Mayo Clinic’s blockchain experiments